Sunday, March 25, 2012

Sunday musings on "why I play chess".

In this last week I have been reminded several times why I am still involved in chess. Early in the week I took a couple of people who had helped out, for drinks, to celebrate a closed property deal. One of them was my banker who had graduated in Mass Communication. So I asked her if she intended to use her university degree later to do what she studied. I could see that the question agitated her. She looked at me and said, "I don't know what to say to you Mr Siew" as though I was from Mars, "Don't you know that working life is just that"?

Get up, go to work get paid and then home again.

I have been in business a long time. I have seen Malaysian business given to foreign companies even though the skill sets are available in Malaysia because our people just can't work together, among other reasons. I have seen the collapse of a Multinational Malaysian company because of internal sabotage.

I see chess as our intellectual bastion and a prime asset to Malaysia. So I observe here. I try to see how reasoning can be overwhelmed by fears and strong emotions. I look to see how our best minds can be twisted with the destruction of hopes and dreams.

I try to observe and to understand the conditions that can prevent our National aspiration of Wawasan 2020.

And I hope to find a way to use chess to help develop Malaysians who can stand tall in the International Arena. People who are disciplined and will carry our flag with pride and honour. People who are not afraid of hard work and want the dignity of true accomplishments.

And if all that fails, I hope that at least my son will have his hopes and dreams still alive to pursue whatever he wants to be in the new globalised world. That I have stood by his side against those that have tried to break him.

Note: I think our aspiration for that first GM is closely tied to Wawasan 2020. If we can succeed then Wawasan 2020 will be that much closer to reality. But to do that we need to wake up and see what is ahead of us. Measure the gap and find ways to get there.